Newsbytes about Danish books and authors
Dansk version
Ida Jessen and the Hvium trilogy
The Danish booksellers’ prize for 2009 went to Ida Jessen. She is currently nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize.
In December Ida Jessen was awarded the Golden Laurels, the Danish Booksellers’ Prize, for her novel Børnene ('The Children'). The novel is the final volume of a trilogy about Hvium, a small town in northern Jutland. The two earlier volumes, Den der lyver ('Who lies…') (2001) and Det først jeg tænker på ('The first I think about') (2006) received rave reviews in the Danish press. Read a presentation of 'The Children' in DLM:
http://www.danishliterarymagazine.dk/index.php?id=4186)
Ida Jessen: Børnene / 'The Children', Gyldendal 2009, 320 pp.
Foreign Rights: Leonhardt & Høier, Anneli Høier
Tel: +45 33 13 25 23
E-mail: anneli@remove-this.leonardt-hoier.dk
Carsten Jensen and the Olof Palme Prize
Carsten Jensen received the Olof Palme Prize in Stockholm in 2009.
The author Carsten Jensen has been awarded the Olof Palme Prize for 2009. He is attracting attention at the moment in many parts of the world with his novel Vi, de druknede ('We, the drowned', e.g from Harvill Secker, spring 2010). Previous books have also been widely translated, including Jeg har set verden begynde ('I have seen the World begin', Harvill Press 2000) and Jorden i munden ('Earth in the Mouth', Picador Publishing 1994). The justification for the award included the following statement:
"As a successful writer, Carsten Jensen has also been an uncompromising and knowledgeable defender of every individual’s equal worth. In words and in actions, he has stood up for the weak and the vulnerable in his own society and around the world."
Carsten Jensen’s solidarity with the persecuted and oppressed has brought him to the war-torn Balkans, Burma and Afghanistan, as well as to churches and public spaces in his own country, defending the human rights of asylum-seeking refugees.
Carsten Jensen obliges us to think about our self-sufficiency and narrow-mindedness. He urges us to stand up for humanism, common sense and faith in our future.’
Read more about the prize and former prize-winners:
http://www.palmefonden.se/index.php?sid=1&pid=44
Read a presentation of Carsten Jensen’s novel Vi, de druknede ('We, the drowned)' in DLM: http://www.danishliterarymagazine.dk/index.php?id=1813
Carsten Jensen: Vi, de druknede, Gyldendal
Foreign Rights: Leonhardt & Høier, Anneli Høier
Tel +45 3313 2523
E-mail: anneli@remove-this.leonhardt-hoier.dk
Naja Marie Aidt and ‘Best European Fiction 2010’
Nordic Council prize-winner 2008, Naja Marie Aidt, in prestigious company
With her short story Bulbjerg from her collection Bavian, Naja Marie Aidt represents Denmark in the anthology ‘Best European Fiction 2010’. The anthology is edited by the writer Alexandar Hemon, who will be familiar from his novels The Lazarus Project, A Question of Bruno, and Nowhere Man. The writer Zadie Smith has written a foreword for the anthology.
The New York Times reviewed the collection and wrote of Naja Marie Aidt:
‘The emotions unleashed in this tale couldn't be contained in any nice little talk. They are painfully universal. Yet you know exactly where in the universe you are. This is the hallmark of great short stories, from Chekhov's portraits of discontented Russians to Joyce's struggling Dubliners to Jhumpa Lahiri's uprooted Bengalis. People are the same everywhere; it’s the places that define them that are different.’ (Radhinka Jones, N.Y. Times, Jan. 21 2010)
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1955583,00.html#ixzz0iRKDH228
Best European Fiction 2010. Dalkey Archive Press, ISBN 978-1-56478-543-5
Naja Mariie Aidt's most recent publication is the poetry collection Alting Blinker ('Everything Glitters') (Read an extract in this edition of DLM).
Foreign Rights: Leonhardt & Høier, Anneli Høier
Tel +45 3313 2523
E-mail: anneli@remove-this.leonhardt-hoier.dk
Submarino at the Berlin Film Festival
Highly acclaimed novel also arouses interest all round the world as a film
Thomas Vinterberg’s screen version of Bengtsson’s Submarino is promoted using YouTube clips.
At the Berlin Film Festival the Danish film director Thomas Vinterberg, who is well-known for the film Festen ('The Celebration'), presented his screen version of Jonas T. Bengtsson’s critically acclaimed novel Submarino. The book has been accepted for publication in Germany and Norway.
The film has already been sold in a large number of countries, including Luxembourg, Holland, Belgium, Italy, France, Columbia, Japan, Taiwan, Greece and Brazil.
See the YouTube trailer for the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXQsSStHI5c
Read a presentation of the novel in DLM: http://www.danishliterarymagazine.dk/index.php?id=1662
Kaaberbøl and Friis: volume two in the series about Nina Borg
A new and sinister offering from the female duo of Danish crime fiction
Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis made their debut as a writing duo in 2009 with the thriller Drengen i kufferten ('The Boy in the Suitcase') (Read the presentation in DLM: http://www.danishliterarymagazine.dk/index.php?id=2989).
The second volume in the series, Et stille umærkeligt drab ('A Quiet, Unremarkable Murder'), came out at the beginning of 2010. Here the Red Cross nurse, Nina Borg, becomes tangled up in a case in which she risks her life to confront people in flight, terrorist threats and the cynical powers behind the scene. In a disused hospital in Hungary two Gipsy boys have made the find of their lives – or so they think. The older brother of one of the boys becomes involved against his will, and soon he is on his way across Europe to find his brother, who has disappeared…
Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis: Et stille umærkeligt drab ('A Quiet, Unremarkable Murder)'.
Foreign Rights: Julie Lærke Løvgren
People’s Press
Tel.: +45 72 21 52 44
E-mail: julo@artpeople.dk
Jussi Adler-Olsen selling well
German readers are hooked on Afdeling Q ('Department Q'), and the crime series is now on its way to USA
The writer Jussi Adler-Olsen has made an international breakthrough with her crime fiction. At the book fair in Frankfurt last autumn the German version of Kvinden i buret ('The Woman in the Cage') was launched in a first edition of 25,000, but only a few days later the German publishers had to print a second run of 45,000 copies.
Most recently the three books in the series about Department Q with the detective inspector Carl Mørk and his cheery assistant Assad have been sold for translation in England for Penguin Books, in Italy for Marsilio Editori and in Spain for Maeve Editions. See list of sold titles under ‘Recently sold’.
(Read the presentation of Fasandræberne ('The Pheasant Killers') in DLM: http://www.danishliterarymagazine.dk/index.php?id=2989)
(Visit the author’s homepage: http://www.jussiadlerolsen.dk/forside?lang=da and in English: http://www.jussiadlerolsen.dk/home?lang=en)
Jussi Adler-Olsen
Foreign Rights: Politikens Forlag, Nya Gudberg
Tel: +45 33 47 08 97
E-mail: nya.guldberg@remove-this.jppol.dk
New Danish crime writing duo: Hammer & Hammer
Sold in 16 countries before their debut
Gyldendal publishers had brought a bull's-eye along with them to the book fair in Frankfurt in the form of a completely new crime writing brother-and-sister partnership, Lotte and Søren Hammer. Their first novel, Svinehunde ('The Beast Within'), was first published in Danish on 18th March 2010, but despite that overwhelming interest was shown in this first-time duo. ‘We sold the novel to both Norway and Germany, several publishers raised the bidding and in the end a tidy sum was paid for it,’ says Gyldendal’s literary director, Johannes Riis. The book will be coming, for example, to England via Bloomsbury, to USA via St. Martin’s Press and to Japan via Hayakawa.
See the list of sold titles under ‘Recently sold’.
Hammer & Hammer: Svinehunde ('The Beast Within')
Foreign Rights:
Gyldendal
Karen Vad Bruun
Tel.: +45 33 75 57 48
E-mail: karen_bruun@remove-this.gyldendalgrupoagency.dk
Jakob Ejersbo and the completion of the trilogy
An African realism as hard as ironwood knocks out the reviewers
The publication of his novel Liberty ('Liberty') marks the conclusion of the so-called ‘Africa trilogy’ (Exile, Revolution and Liberty) by Jakob Ejersbo, who made his international breakthrough with his novel Nordkraft ('Nordkraft') in 2002. Each volume can be read as a self-contained book, and the first two have had good reviews. The critical response to his final volume has, however, been truly fantastic:
‘After a week in Africa with Jakob Ejersbo’s novel Liberty both language and reality start to reel. The book is as large as a continent, as sweaty as a discotheque in Dar es Salaam and as black as a journey to the end of night.’ (Politiken)
In the Information newspaper the reviewer believes that Ejersbo is reviving Danish literature and that the book deserves to be read
‘partly because here and there in the almost impenetrable darkness chinks of light shine through, sparks of friendship, love, care, responsibility and pride, and partly because the entire picture of reality emerges powerful and credible thanks to a portrayal of humanity that is at once hard-nosed and delicately empathetic.’
In England MacLehose Press will be publishing the trilogy and in Germany Random House. See the list of sold titles under ‘Recently sold’.
(Read the presentation of the first two volumes of the trilogy in DLM:
http://www.danishliterarymagazine.dk/index.php?id=4160)
Jette Kaarsbøl Din næstes hus ('Your Neighbour’s House')
The moral dilemmas of modern life follow on historic success
After the success of her first novel Den lukkede bog ('The Closed Book'), Jette A. Kaarsbøl’s next novel was awaited with considerable anticipation. 'The Closed Book' has been published in Norway, Sweden, Germany and England.
At last the author’s new novel has arrived. 'Your Neighbour’s House' is about the architect, Laus Lindborg, who on the surface lives an exciting bachelor existence with his own architect’s office, good friends and shifting relationships with a number of different women. Nevertheless he experiences a growing vacuum in his life, an absence of meaning in existence. Prompted by his father’s sudden death and burial, he seizes his chance to take a break and ensconce himself in a provincial town for a couple of weeks, where he comes into close contact with the local priest and his family. It is about a man in his midlife crisis. About the complexity of life lived among people, about closeness, rootlessness and infidelity.
Jette A. Kaarsbøl: Din næstes hus ('Your Neighbour’s House')
Foreign Rights: Gyldendal Group Agency
Karen Vad Bruun
Tel: +45 33 75 57 48
E-mail: karen_bruun@remove-this.gyldendalgroupagency.dk
Translated by John Mason |
